Le Complexe de lutte : Facebook, critique visuelle et la querelle pour le pouvoir politique au Nigéria.

Abstract

AbstractOn 20 November 2014, a violent melee broke out among the parliamentarians on the premises of the National Assembly in Nigeria. It was an inter-party confrontation that demonstrated the elites’ struggle for power, not necessarily unprecedented in the country’s post-independence political history since 1960. What is fascinating about this particular case is its connection with a new social and visual culture driven by digital infrastructure. The videos and still photographs of the encounter, and other images derived from these, went viral online and became visible sites of interpersonal exchange. I tracked the visual production on Facebook, the platform that allowed the most compelling form of interaction around the images. In this essay, I deploy semiotic analytical tools to examine a selection of the images and their accompanying comments. I demonstrate that digital photography and its structures of image editing, circulation, and construction of meaning allow the subjects of Nigerian government to criticise the struggle for power among state functionaries. The power tussle and its critique produce a struggle complex that casts light on the broader political conflict in Nigeria and the growing sense of despair towards the failed Nigerian postcolonial democracy. This argument enhances our understanding of how digital photography brings “ordinary” citizens to the centre of discussions of African political issues and enables them to challenge the dominant state power. I consider the intersection of new media and the theorisation of photography as a site of politics and interpersonal relations.